


X. No Way

by notablyindigo



Series: The Better Half [10]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notablyindigo/pseuds/notablyindigo





	X. No Way

She’d thought it was going to last forever. 

Not in any specific way, of course. She hadn’t gone as far as imagining rocking chairs on the porch—that would be crazy. But in the abstract, Joan had never considered in earnest the possibility of it being over. And yet, here they are. 

She adds another layer of packing tape to hold down the flaps of the cardboard box containing her books, then hefts the box onto a mover’s dolly. Around her, the bookshelves look like they’re missing teeth; the rescinding of her personal library leaves a massive gap in the microbiology section Miss Hudson had so carefully organized and arranged. But they don’t belong there anymore. And, Joan reminds herself as she edges the laden dolly into the foyer, neither does she. 

—-

More than explaining it to Miss Hudson or Alfredo or Detective Bell or her mother, explaining the situation to Captain Gregson had been the most challenging. 

"I don’t understand," he’d said slowly over the tops of his steepled hands when they’d told him, sitting in his office at the precinct. "You’re telling me that this team—which, by the way, has doubled the department’s case success rate—is ‘being dissolved’?" He punctuated the end of his sentence with a pair of exaggerated air quotes. "You two are valuable. You’re partners. And most importantly, you’re a pair of damn adults. Whatever this is, fix it so we can all get back to work." Joan had glanced at Sherlock, then at the ground. In his chair next to her, Sherlock picked sullenly at the sleeve of his sweater, and Gregson sighed.

"Holmes, whatever impulsive decision you made, just—" 

"Actually, this was my choice, Captain," Joan had interrupted, stirring her long-cold coffee with the thin red straw it had come with. Gregson had looked at her, surprised, his expression somewhat doubtful, and Joan almost smiled. Count on Gregson to be enough on her side to assume that Sherlock was at fault, but still adequately male-minded to assume that Sherlock was ending things with her and not the other way around. 

Ending things. It sounded like a break-up, and in a sense it was, though what they’d had had been domestic rather than romantic. But then even that had lapsed, until the days of “I am better with you” and “I go where he goes” seemed like a fiction. They’d been meant to be partners, in business and at home. But partners didn’t keep secrets. Partners didn’t attempt to edit your truths to suit their own. 

For her part, Dr. Reed had agreed with this assessment. At their therapy session last week, Joan had sat across the table from the therapist and haltingly explained the situation. “I think I need to leave,” she’d said at last, looking down at her hands. Dr. Reed had nodded, scribbled something down on her notepad, then nodded again. 

"I think that would be best."

It had been more difficult to convince Sherlock of this, though really, she wasn’t terribly interested in convincing him or having his approval (after all, since when had he been concerned with obtaining consent from her?). By the time he’d come back from his evening meeting, she’d already packed an overnight bag and called Em to ask if she could stay in her guest room while she scouted for a new apartment.

He’d argued, of course—telling her she was overreacting, that it was a case, he’d done what he thought appropriate, that he’d lied plenty of times before—but her mind was made up.

"I can’t trust you, Sherlock!" she’d said, getting to her feet. "This?" she said, gesturing at the two of them. "This requires us to trust each other. You shut me out. You didn’t trust me enough to handle the real details of the case because you were worried about my conduct. And yet every time you rile up a crazy guy until he shoots our friend, or sleep with a murder suspect, it’s just…what? Par for the course? Professional interest?” She sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. 

"Watson," he’d started, swallowing hard. "I didn’t mean…I was trying to help." 

"Help how, exactly?" she’d asked, her anger flaring up again. "You edited files. My dad was a suspect, and you edited the files to…what? Protect me from tanking my career with my feelings? He left the shelter, spent two days in the snow hiding from the NYPD because you decided it would be better to send Marcus to question him instead of me. Because god forbid I allow my emotions to get in the way of my job. Which, of course, has never happened to you!” 

They’d both been saved by a series of loud honks from the cab that had arrived to pick up Joan. Joan knew she didn’t have anything left to say that wouldn’t cause irreparable harm, and Sherlock had looked as crumpled and defeated as she’d ever seen him. (It had taken a lot of energy to keep her guilt over this at bay.) 

"I hope you’ll reconsider," Sherlock had said from the doorstep as she’d left. But she hadn’t wavered. 

—-

She’s placing the last few boxes in the back of Em’s truck as Sherlock walks up to the brownstone. Spotting her on the sidewalk, his gait falters and he comes to a stop several yards away. He’d offered to give her the house to herself for the morning so she could pack her things in privacy, but it had taken longer than her noon estimate for her to move everything out. Em catches sight of him and glances at Joan with a worried expression. 

"Do you want me to go talk to him?" she asks, and Joan almost laughs because this is like a real break-up, awkwared moving out, overprotective friends and all. She shakes her head, closes the trunk, and walks over to Sherlock. 

"Got all your things then?" he asks mildly, eyeing the boxes attached by bungee cord to the roof of Em’s car, and Joan nods. 

"Here," she says, handing him her copy of the key, but he pushes it back into her hand. 

"You giving me your key lends me no extra sense of security, Watson. You and I both could pick these locks in our sleep. The keys are merely a formality." He pauses, then adds, "Perhaps if you visit sometime. Or cocksit. Who knows?" Joan makes a face and pockets the key. 

"I guess this is it for me and consulting," she says, examining the cracks in the pavement at her feet. Sherlock’s brow furrows.

"To the contrary," he says, lips pursed. "I expect you’ll be my competition." Sherlock extends his hand for her to shake. Joan blinks, surprised, then accepts. 

"Thanks," she says, and searches for the right words. What do you say at this juncture? I’m sorry? I’m terrified that I’m making the wrong decision? I’m worried about what will happen to you when I leave? She settles for their old refrain. "I’m going to miss this," she begins. Sherlock smiles crookedly.

"Well, maybe not this, so much,” he quotes. “But this? Working with you?” He releases her hand. “It’s been an honor, Watson.” 

"Yeah," Joan replies, and she’s trying to think of more words, something else to fill the space between them, but perhaps there’s nothing left to say. She turns towards Em’s car, but Sherlock’s hand on her wrist stops her. 

"For you," he says, holding out the plain white box he’d been holding under his left arm. Joan accepts it apprehensively and eases the lid off the box. Inside is a glass case about the length and breadth of a piece of printer paper, with four colorful pods mounted on canvas inside it. Bee nests, she realizes, made of flower petals. Written in Sherlock’s cramped scrawl in the bottom right corner of the canvas is: "The work of E. Watsonia". Joan’s chest tightens.

"To my surprise, Euglassia Watsonia took quite after Osmia Avosetta in its nest-building habits, with its preference being for dwelling alone rather than in a hive." His smile falters. "I suppose they have more in common than I originally thought." His allusion is not subtle. Bile begins to bite at Joan’s throat, and it’s part sadness and part guilt, but this is the way it should be. This is the way it has to be now. She puts the lid back on the box.

"I suppose so," she says. She turns and starts back toward Em, and is glad when he doesn’t stop her a second time.

It wouldn’t do to linger.


End file.
